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Bloomington - Feb 18, 2004 The recent marriage of evolutionary biology with developmental biology has resulted in the birth of a new field, evolutionary developmental biology, or "evo-devo." Evo-devo scientists study the mechanisms that produce evolutionary changes in body plans over time. As one of the field's creators, Indiana University Bloomington biologist Rudolf Raff brings new understanding to the evolution of humans and other organisms by uniting fossil data and information about the genes that control development. Major historical questions about the origin of multicellular animals, the Cambrian radiation and the origins of animal larvae can now be addressed using evo-devo's mechanistic tools. Last month, the National Academy of Sciences chose Raff as the winner of its 2003 Elliott Medal for his role in founding evo-devo. Raff and IUB colleagues Loren Rieseberg, Thomas Kaufman, Michael Lynch and Jeffrey Palmer lead the largest concentration of evo-devo biologists in the nation. In a presentation at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science titled "The Quick and the Dead: Developmental Genetics Meets Extinct Organisms," Raff will discuss how evo-devo will expand our understanding of the fossil record. He will show how and why some complex features in animal development may have evolved much more quickly than expected. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Indiana University SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Dirt, rocks and all the stuff we stand on firmly
![]() ![]() Using the ESA Cluster spacecraft and the NASA Wind and ACE satellites, a team of American and European scientists have discovered the largest jets of particles created between the Earth and the Sun by magnetic reconnection. This result makes the cover of this week's issue of Nature. |
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